


A Force To Be Reckoned With

by AGlassRoseNeverFades



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic
Genre: Breathplay, Cannibalism, Force Powers, Force Powers Used in Kinky Ways, How Could I Possibly Resist That, Jedi!Alana, Kinda, Lightsaber Duels, M/M, No Regrets About the Title Though, SW: Kotor AU, Seriously it's a Star Wars Pun and a Hannibal Pun in One, Sex, Sith!Hannibal, Star Wars - Freeform, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, Violence, WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT?, Warning for MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS for the Game, grey!Will, this fic has it all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 05:13:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4378583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AGlassRoseNeverFades/pseuds/AGlassRoseNeverFades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the skies above the Outer Rim world of Taris, a Republic battle cruiser is attacked by the forces of Darth Kanibalas, successor to Darth Revan and new Dark Lord of the Sith. The ship falls, leaving only three survivors--Jedi Knight Alana Bloom and two Republic soldiers, Will Graham and Jack Crawford--on a desperate quest to make their way back to the Jedi base of operations and come up with a way to stop the Sith's galactic domination once and for all...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Force To Be Reckoned With

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [A Force To Be Reckoned With](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7306291) by [Killde_Achilles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Killde_Achilles/pseuds/Killde_Achilles)



> As stated in the tags, this is an AU based on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and so there are _major, major spoilers_ for that game. Most characters from the game are "recast" as ones from the show, the most important of which are the following:
> 
> \- Alana Bloom as Jedi Knight Bastila Shan  
> \- Jack Crawford as Carth Onasi  
> \- Hannibal Lecter as Darth Malak, renamed here as Darth Kanibalas  
> \- Will Graham as The Protagonist ;)
> 
> Favorite quotes of mine from both the game and the show can be found scattered throughout, including some from the most recent episode, Digestivo, so be warned for some minimal, if nigh unrecognizable, spoilers there as well.
> 
> ****A note to KOTOR fans on why I changed Malak's name to Kanibalas but left Revan's the same****  
>  My reasons are thus: 1) "Revan" I wanted to keep partly for the simple petty reason that I'm fond of it, but mostly because it's actually short for "the Revanchist," a title that character was given in his days as a general during the Mandalorian Wars. It seemed fitting that it should stay. 
> 
> 2) Malak just doesn't seem to fit as Hannibal's Sith name, and since it's supposed to be a slight variation of the character's original Jedi name (Alek) anyway, I decided some creative license in a similar vein was warranted. Fun fact: "Kanibalas" is actually a Lithuanian word. I'll give you three guesses what it means. ;)
> 
> Now then, ahem! _*clears throat*_  
>  _ **"A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."**_

“Will, you said it yourself. We need to find a way to get off of this planet and get Alana back to the Jedi Enclave as soon as possible.”

“I know what I said, Jack. It’s just that breaking into a crime boss’s hangar and stealing his ship isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

The gruff pilot looks around the dingy apartment they’re currently using as their hideout for the moment, sweeping his arms out in a broad arc. “You see any other options presenting themselves at the moment? Because if so I’d love to know what they are.”

“Enough bickering, please,” says the Jedi Knight, sedately uncrossing her legs from their lotus pose on the bed and lowering her feet to the floor, her meditation apparently over.

“We weren’t bickering,” says Will. Alana quirks a single eyebrow at him and Will ducks his head, lips pulling into an awkward, slightly abashed smile as he recognizes the irony of arguing with her on the point.

“I’m afraid I have to agree with the captain on this one, Ensign Graham,” she says. Graham rolls his lower lip into his mouth and bites down on it gently, refraining from asking for a second time that she call him Will, or from pointing out that even Crawford, the only other actual member of the Republic fleet in this room and who also happens to outrank him, feels no need to formalize the way she does. Bloom is compassionate and friendly, but there is a careful distance and professionalism to her demeanor that he supposes must come from her Jedi training, though he’s never met another Jedi to know for certain. The two of them have yet to even be alone in the same room together since he and Jack finally found her down in the Lower City. Not that he has any intention of pointing out to her that he’s noticed.

“I find the idea just as unsavory as you do, but it’s the only way we’ll be able to break through the blockade and evade Sith patrols,” she tells him.

“I don’t find it unsavory. Doing bad things to bad people is nothing I’ll lose sleep over,” Will says dryly, not missing the small frown Bloom directs at him over the distinction. Jack doesn’t react to it at all, probably agreeing with Will but tactful enough not to say it so bluntly. “What I find it is dangerous to the point of recklessness. You do realize we’re talking about taking on the biggest Exchange presence on Taris with only the three of us, right?”

The astromech droid idling in the corner lets out a series of indignant whirrs and beeps at this pronouncement, drawing a wry smirk from its owner. “Excuse me, the four of us. Sorry, Winston.” While its designation was technically T3-M4, Will had been no more fond of calling it that than he was of being called Ensign himself, so he had affectionately renamed the droid as soon as he bought it.

“I’m hoping we can avoid it coming to an actual fight,” Alana admits.

“Depending on how well Verger pays his men and how fond they are of Tarisian ale and spice,” Jack says brusquely, “I’m willing to bet it won’t be too hard to find someone willing to sneak us in for the right price.”

*

Jack was right; it hadn’t been hard at all. Somehow, Will would have expected the wealthiest Exchange boss on all of Taris and most of the Outer Rim to garner more loyalty than this, but clearly Mason Verger isn’t well-liked on this planet even by most of his own employees. When even the lowlife smugglers and slavers on your own payroll find you contemptible and creepy, Will figures, you really deserve whatever’s coming to you.

It’s as they’re making their way through the mansion to Verger’s hangar, avoiding security cameras and darting past corridors patrolled by droids at nearly every turn, that Will suddenly stops, pressing a hand to the wall to steady himself as he sucks in a sharp breath, almost dizzy. He’s distracted enough not to notice right away as Alana puts a hand to her temple and flinches with a similar look of pain.

“What the hell is going on now? Why are we stopping?” Crawford hisses under his breath.

“Something’s wrong, Jack,” Will whispers, his pupils dilated and his hands shaking. “Something bad is about to happen. Something big.”

“Dammit, Graham, you picked a hell of a time to go crazy on us now.”

“He’s not crazy. I...I sense it as well.” Alana closes her eyes for a moment and tips her head back, almost as if listening for something only she can hear. Jack resists the urge to growl in frustration or tap his foot impatiently, keeping a careful eye out for more patrolling droids. “The Dark Lord has grown impatient with looking for me the slow way, it would seem. He’s...oh. Oh no.” Her eyes spring back open. “He’s going to bombard the whole _planet.”_

“We have to warn everyone, help people evacuate,” Will says, straightening.

The look that crosses briefly over Alana’s features is a curious mixture of surprised and pained, before it quickly resolves into one of steely determination instead. “Will, we don’t have time for that,” she says, deliberately forgetting her own protocols for the moment to call him by name and place both hands on his shoulders to halt him in place. “We can’t save them all even if we try, and right now our priority is to get away from here before we die with them.”

“How can you say that?” Will asks angrily. “You of all people. You’re supposed to be a Jedi! It’s your job to care about others and protect them.”

“No, it isn’t,” she states matter-of-factly. It jars him enough to blink at her once, shocked that she would refute him so openly. “I’m not a savior, Will, I’m a peacekeeper. It’s my job to stop the Sith however I can, which is something I can’t very well do if I’m _dead.”_

“We don’t have time for _any_ of this,” Jack butts in. “Can we please get a move on before we get spotted?”

_No,_ Will wants to tell him but he can’t, not when he’s been outranked and outvoted already. Instead he keeps silent as they make double time for the hangar, all but sprinting in their haste to get there before they get caught or all hell breaks loose in the form of death raining down from the sky.

Verger and his men are waiting for them when they get to the hangar.

“You know, it’s really kind of _adorable_ how you guys thought you were the first ones to ever get in this way,” Verger tells them, giddy as a kid in a candy store. Carlo, their ‘informant’ who got them inside in the first place, stands beside him with a smug grin on his face. “You made it all the way here past the rest of my security though, which is more than I can say for most of the people who try. For that alone I’d think about hiring you, if you weren’t so valuable to me in other ways.” He strokes his chin thoughtfully and turns to Carlo, asking, “What’s the going rate for a pair of fugitive Republic soldiers and a rogue Jedi, you think?”

“Irrelevant,” Alana answers for him. “The Sith are long past the point of striking bargains with petty criminals. They’re planning a massive assault on all of Taris as we speak.”

Verger and his thugs merely laugh, clearly not buying it. “Get them,” he tells his men lazily. “But try to take her alive if you can.”

Will and Jack both pull out their blaster pistols, while Alana ignites her double-bladed lightsaber. The time for talking is over, the noise of conversation in the room giving way to the hum of plasma and vibroblades and the deadly screech of blaster fire.

Will feels a surge of eerie calm as he takes aim and shoots some of the thugs down before they even have a chance to point their weapons at him, much less fire. Combat is something he excels in, often feeling as though he can tell exactly what move an enemy is going to make and what their intentions are before they even know it themselves.

He trusts that Alana and Jack are skilled enough to handle themselves as well, though his eyes stray to Winston at least once to make sure the little droid is doing okay. Fortunately anyone careless enough to get too close to the astromech gets a nasty shock for their troubles, and the occasional blaster shot that does hit it does little damage against its tough outer frame since none of Verger’s goons thought to equip ion blasters.

One of them uses Will’s distraction to his advantage, however, stepping in close enough to knock Will’s pistol from his hand with a swipe from his shock stick, leaving Will’s fingers temporarily numb from the impact. The big guy then charges and bowls him over with a shoulder to the chest before he has a chance to recover.

On the ground, he rolls out of the way, dodging another blow as the big guy comes barreling after him. He’s not quick enough to avoid a swift kick to the ribs, however, curling in on himself slightly from the pain. His opponent uses the opportunity to hunch over him, digging his knees into Will’s thighs to hold him in place so he can try again to bring the baton down over his head unimpeded.

Will reaches blindly with his off-hand to try to find something, _anything,_ on the floor to block with, groping uselessly around nothing but empty air until somehow the hilt of a vibroblade he remembers getting dropped by one of the men he shot, though several feet away from him, glides effortlessly into his palm as if someone slid it over. He brings it up just in time, stopping the shock baton from landing its blow only inches from his face.

He uses the other guy’s surprise to stagger him back, body pumping with adrenaline as without thinking about it he pushes up and slices the guy’s hand off, then stabs him in the throat before he can so much as cry out in agony.

Blood spatters on Will’s face and he flinches, shaking, pushing the body away from him quickly before it can become deadweight on his legs.

He stands, and the earth rumbles and shakes, nearly causing him to fall over again.

“What…what the hell was that?” Mason Verger asks, terrified. Around the room lay all of his men now, either dead or unconscious.

“The attack’s starting!” Alana shouts. “Will, come on! We have to go now!”

“Wait, take me with you!” Verger cries out, stumbling in his haste to follow as Will and Alana run up the ramp together to board the ship. Jack waves them both inside and stands at the entrance, pointing a blaster at Verger and halting him in his tracks as he attempts to join them.

“Take you with us? So you can stab us in the back as soon as you get a chance? I don’t think so. Now get off the ramp before I shoot.”

“Bu-but I’ll die!”

“You’ll die if you take another damn step forward. Now do as I say and BACK UP!”

Verger does one step better than that—he turns tail and runs. Maybe he goes thinking he’ll find some other transport to get him off the planet, or has some secret hidden bunker he hopes will be enough to protect him from the fallout. Jack couldn’t care less. He presses the button to raise up the ramp and heads for the cockpit as soon as it closes.

*

All is quiet some hours later aboard the _Ebon Stag._ After successfully breaking from Taris’ orbit as the destruction began and evading their pursuers, each member of the team split off to clean up and also take inventory of whatever supplies they could find onboard. It’s more than enough to last them until Dantooine, which they should reach in less than a day and a half by Galactic Standard Time as long as they stay in hyperspace the whole way.

Jack is back in the cockpit now to monitor the control readouts and keep them on track, while Alana is in the port dormitory, most likely meditating again if Will had to take a guess. He and Jack had agreed they would share the starboard dormitory in shifts until they reach their destination.

Most likely Jack would have something disapproving to say if he saw Will still awake now when he should be taking the time to rest, but the younger man finds it far more relaxing to run diagnostics with Winston and give the little droid a much needed tune-up than he would be asleep. Jack understands nothing of the kinds of thoughts and visions that plague Will in his dreams.

He knows without turning around the moment he’s being watched. “You’re very good with that astromech,” Alana says softly behind him.

“I like droids,” he responds without looking up from the front panel he’s fiddling with. Winston gives a happy little trill that draws a pleased smile from its master, causing him to pause for a moment in what he’s doing to pat it fondly on the head. “And I like fixing things too. Less complicated than people.”

“Do you find it difficult to understand people?”

Will’s smile falters and then falls away entirely. “No,” he says simply. “I don’t.”

Alana comes around to sit on a bench behind the T3 unit where she can see his face, smoothing her robes as she crosses her ankles. “Can we talk for a minute?”

“I thought we were talking.” Will gently closes the panel flap he was working on and opens another to start on it.

Alana observes him quietly for a few seconds, then says, “Back on Taris, you knew what was about to happen. Before I did, even.”

“I didn’t _know,”_ Will rebuts. “I just...had a gut feeling.”

“These ‘gut feelings,’ do they happen often?”

“Sometimes.”

“And drawing a weapon to your hand with nothing more than the power of your mind, does that happen often or only ‘sometimes’ as well?” she asks with a smile that could almost be considered teasing. Will looks up at her finally and the smile broadens slightly as if to tell him, _‘Yes, I saw that.’_

“Never, before today,” he answers honestly, at least as far as he knows. Now that she’s brought it up, he has to think about his own luck in the past and wonder how much of it was really only that.

“I think you know what I’m going to say next.” Will glances away from her again, but Alana takes no offense as she continues to speak. “I thought when we first met that you might be Force sensitive, and now I know you are. I’d like to discuss it with the Council when we arrive on Dantooine.”

“Don’t you think I’m a little old for the Jedi Academy?” he asks with an awkward smirk, guessing correctly where she’s going with this.

“It’s uncommon, but you wouldn’t be the first initiate to join in their adult years,” she responds. “And the alternative would be...unwise.” Her smile falters a bit as she says this. “I’m not telling you this entirely to be magnanimous, Will. Leaving a Force user to his own devices with an untrained and undisciplined mind would be, to use your own words, dangerous to the point of recklessness,” she says.

“Worried I’ll fall to the _Dark Side_ without your Council’s tender leading hand to guide me?” he asks with mocking emphasis on the phrase, wiggling his fingers dramatically like a camper telling ghost stories around the fire. When all he gets is a solemn look in response, he drops his hands to his knees and says, “I know the difference between right and wrong, Alana.”

“You do? Well, that’s impressive. I barely know it myself sometimes,” she quips. Her tone grows more serious again as she adds, “If it were really so simple, Will, why would so many good men fall?”

“You think _I’m_ a good man?” Will asks, snorting in disbelief.

“I think you try to be one,” she answers, eyes widening slightly as if she’s surprised by her own words. “Which is already more than I can say for a lot of people I’ve met on my travels. I’d hate to see that man get lost somewhere along the way.”

Will sighs, closing up the rest of Winston’s panels and wiping his hands on the shop rag beside him. “Do what you want then,” he says.

He tells Jack about it later in the cockpit. “So, last living member of my crew and she wants to take you away too, make you into some Jedi Padawan or disciple or whatever?” Jack snorts. “Just my luck,” he adds with an ironic grin.

“Somehow I get the impression it won’t be all balancing data holocrons on my head in the library or lounging in the meditation gardens,” Will tells him wryly.

“Shit, no, they’ve got the hardest jobs out of all of us,” Jack says with grudging respect. “Between you and me though? I’ve never been wholly comfortable around Force users, on either side of the fence. No offense.” Will shrugs. He’s used to making other people uncomfortable, usually by being too insightful for his own good.

“It’s just...how can you trust someone who can pretty much bend reality to their will?” Jack says. “Change the world around you, hell, change what you’re even thinking without you ever knowing it. They say the Force can do terrible things to a mind.” The console beeps and both of them glance over at it, but it’s just the clock telling them that it’s now 0200 GST.

“You fine to keep watch on your own for awhile?” Jack asks. Will nods. “Good, I’m gonna try to go take a nap. Wake me if we’re about to get blown to bits out of the sky,” Jack tells him, patting him once good-naturedly on the shoulder as he stands and steps out of the cockpit.

*

The plan alters a bit the first time Will actually does try to sleep, a few hours yet before their arrival at the Enclave.

He dreams of two mysterious figures, their faces obscured by their hooded robes and the mask one of them wears, though both are distinctly human males, standing outside of a strange temple. The one without the mask speaks in an unfamiliar accent, talking of consequences and choices that cannot be unmade, though his voice is placid and strangely unconcerned, considering the serious nature of the topic.

The vision does not leave him even after he wakes, and he goes to the cockpit, uncertain of what he saw but pressed by the urgent need to talk about it with someone.

Alana is already there, her hair mussed from sleep as though she too only just awoke. “You saw it too,” she says before he can even speak. “I recognized the place they were at,” she continues without prompting. “It’s here. On Dantooine.”

*

The Council is most intrigued by this vision as well, and confirm Alana’s assertion that the two men are Darth Revan and Darth Kanibalas, in the early days of their corruption.

“Or Hannibal Lecter, as he was known then,” says Councilor Chilton, a smarmy Consular that Will instantly decides he dislikes. “Always followed Revan around like a lost puppy, though he was the older of the two. Of course, that young man was something of a prodigy even by our standards, so I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising he would garner a natural following amongst even our most gifted students. I’m told he could even be quite the charmer, when he wanted to be,” the man adds with a sickly smile that says he’s skeptical on that point. Will guesses the two of them didn’t get along much, and wonders if there could be anyone on this rock who actually likes Chilton.

“Darth Revan is no more, Councilor,” Alana reminds him. “I’m far more interested in talking about the very real, living threat Darth Kanibalas presents to the galaxy as his successor.”

“We should always strive to understand our own histories and the mistakes of our past, Jedi Bloom,” says Master Vandar.

Alana bows her head in a sheepish manner. “Of course, Master, I apologize if I seemed...brusque in my response.” She seems as if she is about to ask him something else but stops, closing her mouth gently.

“This matter of the temple will be investigated in due time,” Vandar continues. “For now, I am far more interested in this new initiate you have brought us.”

“You cannot be serious!” Chilton argues.

“That is quite enough, Master Frederick,” says Vandar, long green ears twitching in what might be annoyance. Chilton appears flustered by the censure.

“I...fine. Let it be known I am against us wasting our time with this... _Padawan,_ if you are so inclined to make him one, when we have better matters we could be attending to, but...carry on then,” Chilton says resignedly. No, Will thinks privately to himself, he and Chilton definitely won’t be becoming friends anytime soon.

*

The next few weeks turn into a crash course on Jedi training and protocol as Alana and the Masters try to cram all the basics into his skull. Will is aware that this has to be against all normal procedures, but understands that it’s necessary. They need him because of these shared visions he and Alana keep having together, but don’t want to just throw him back out into the war with her until he has some mental fortifications and practical experience. Alana, at least, takes the time to commend him for his patience and praise him for learning and adapting to his new knowledge so quickly. As if he has any choice in the matter.

Truth be told, it comes more easily than he ever would have anticipated, to the point that it feels wrong somehow to accept her praise at all as though he’s anything special. By the time they’re finally ready to leave Dantooine, it feels as though this one little planet and its Academy have supplanted everything else in his brain and left nothing of the old Will behind.

Their mission is to retrace Revan and Kanibalas’ steps as best they can following these dreams in hopes of finding some weakness or hidden clue that can be used against the Sith.

There’s a saying about best laid plans that comes to mind when that goal brings far more attention down on them than they ever could have realized, as the _Ebon Stag_ is intercepted by a Sith warship shortly after leaving Manaan airspace.

“That’s not just any warship,” Jack says, watching the display monitor helplessly as a tractor beam carries them closer against their will to the behemoth _Interdictor_ -class cruiser.

“It’s the _Ripper,”_ Alana says grimly.

“Isn’t that...” Will starts to ask, cutting himself short once he realizes the answer is obvious. “So what do we do now?” he asks instead.

“Pray that a certain somebody isn’t home right now,” Jack says. “Since that’s probably the only way we’re all walking away from this alive.”

_Well,_ Will thinks. _This should go great._

*

“It really would be in your best interests to cooperate,” says the uniformed woman leading the tactical assault team of heavily armored Sith troops to take them away to the interrogation cells. “Captain Crawford, long time no see.”

“Admiral Prurnell,” Jack greets back. “If it were up to me, it would have been much longer.”

“It wasn’t though,” she replies. “My commander has been very anxious to find this...ship,” she says, eyeing the _Ebon Stag_ disdainfully, “since it evaded our fighters at Taris.”

“I’ll bet he has,” Will mutters. Everything he has been told about Darth Kanibalas so far makes him think the Sith Lord would be the kind of arrogant, uptight prick who would take their escape as a personal offense.

Prurnell—who up to that point has all but ignored him as insignificant and extra, Jedi or no, showing far more interest in her former colleague from her days with the Republic and in Alana, the Jedi who led the team that killed her old commander Revan roughly a year ago—turns to him now with a sharp gaze when he speaks, eyes narrowed as though trying to reassess her own assumptions about the potential threat he may present.

“And where is your commander now, Admiral?” Alana asks smoothly. “If he’s as anxious as you say, I’m surprised he wasn’t here to greet us himself.” Part of Will wishes he could applaud for the calm, confident performance she gives. If he weren’t able to sense her emotions, he would have no idea how terrified she actually was.

“He’s stepped out for the moment,” Prurnell responds dryly. “But don’t worry your pretty head, he’ll be back soon enough. I’m sure he’s very much looking forward to seeing you again.” Will can practically feel the shudder Alana has to suppress echoing down his own spine.

“As am I,” she says with a smile that doesn’t meet her eyes.

The three of them are ushered down a maze of corridors on the way to the holding cells that Will commits to memory, knowing it will be important later to get back to their ship quickly.

He senses Alana’s plan almost as though she whispered it to him, though neither of them speak or even so much as meet each other’s gazes. At the next winding turn, they both act simultaneously, summoning their lightsabers back to them and cutting down the troopers in seconds.

“Oh good,” says Jack, quickly picking up a blaster rifle from one of the fallen soldiers, “I was beginning to wonder what the hell I brought along two Jedi for.” He points the blaster at Prurnell. “Drop your weapons to the floor, Kade, nice and slow.” The Admiral does so and Jack gestures with his rifle that she should keep moving forward. “You’re gonna take us to the controls for the tractor beam and help us disable it. _Now.”_

*

That part goes off without a hitch, and the four of them begin sprinting back to the hangar bay, Jack still driving Prurnell forward, stating that as much as he’d rather see her go to trial for her war crimes he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot if it came to it.

Halfway there, Alana skids to a halt, eyes widening in alarm as she says, “No, not that way!” and takes a sharp left instead of a right. Will understands why a few seconds later, as he too feels a dark powerful presence coming from the direction she ran from, and follows her without question. Prurnell laughs once sharply, correctly guessing the reason for their change of course, and only keeps going when Jack prods her in the back with his rifle.

They end up in a large, wider corridor than the rest, Will feeling Alana’s rising panic claw up his own throat secondhand as one by one every passageway out closes with a soft, final click before they can reach it. _“No, no, no,”_ she starts saying under her breath as the only one left open is the one they came in from.

“Alana, be still,” Will chides her. “If we have to face him, then so be it.”

“No, you don’t understand!” she says. “We have to get out now before he _sees—”_

“The miraculous gift you have brought me?” says a voice from behind them, one that sends strange shivers up Will’s spine, familiar as it is, though only from his dreams. “I am already aware, though until now a part of me had feared it might only be a rumor.”

Will and Alana both turn around slowly to face their new arrival, a tall man in Dark Jedi robes, oddly handsome, with ashen blond hair slicked back from his face and glittering maroon eyes. Prurnell stands to the side of their little group, smirking triumphantly without saying anything, while Jack continues to keep his weapon trained on her, knowing it would be pointless to even bother taking aim at the Dark Lord of the Sith when he is so hopelessly outmatched by the man.

“Darth Kanibalas, I presume,” Will says warily.

The Sith Lord tilts his head, an unreadable expression crossing his features. “You presume? Then that rumor is true as well, I see.” Before Will can puzzle out that peculiar statement, the man begins to step forward to close the gap between them. Will ignites his lightsaber before he can take a step further and Alana follows suit.

Kanibalas eyes the green plasma blade in Will’s hand with an amused smirk and ignites his own, a dark crimson red. “I would have chosen the blue for you personally,” he says. “While not a perfect match, it would have gone far better with your eyes.”

Will chooses to ignore the oddly flirtatious remark, deciding it must be a tactic designed to throw him off-balance, and says, “Whatever it is you want with Alana, you’ll have to go through me first.”

“Alana Bloom?” Kanibalas asks without even bothering to glance over at her, unwilling to tear his gaze away from Will’s. “My dear, whatever gave you the impression I would go to all this trouble for her?”

“She...she killed your master,” Will says confusedly, not pulling his gaze away either even when Alana whispers his name pleadingly.

“Is that what she did to him?” Kanibalas asks. “Perhaps you should ask her yourself,” he says, taking another step closer.

Alana moves swiftly between them before Will can protest, holding her own saber out challengingly as she says, “You stay back, just stay away from him!”

“She thinks herself your protector now,” says Kanibalas, still addressing Will though it’s Alana he faces now. “The irony. As if it were me you would ever come to harm with.”

“Funny,” she says with a sardonic look of her own. “Considering I seem to recall having a much easier time taking Revan down than I expected after the _Ripper_ started firing on his flagship as soon as we boarded it.”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Jack asks curtly, though no one bothers to answer or even glances in his direction.

Will feels sick dread begin to pool in his stomach without yet understanding, without _wanting to understand_ why. He takes a few careful, measured steps to the side so he can see both of their faces again, lightsaber still drawn, and whispers softly as if he can’t help himself, “You betrayed your own master?”

“Betrayed and abandoned him to his fate,” Alana answers for the Sith without taking her eyes off him. “Before ever even learning what that fate was. It’s what his kind always do, Will.”

“Betrayal and abandonment require certain expectations,” says Darth Kanibalas. “A level of intimacy and trust.” His gaze slides over to meet Will’s eyes once more. “Even love.”

Will’s grip on his own lightsaber tightens, to keep his hands from shaking.

“Will Graham,” the man says, and that’s just _wrong,_ Will thinks. His name should not sound so rich and warm coming from that man’s mouth. The older man chuckles as if he can hear his thoughts. “I saw that name on the crew manifest for the vessel we shot down over Taris and I thought it must be a trap. Even the Jedi Council would not be so arrogant, I assumed, as to provide you with a new identity but not give you a new name.” Will shakes his head, not a ‘no’ so much as an attempt to dispel the words and unhear them. “Though I suppose they did not tell you what we were called before we converted to the Dark Side.”

“They told me who you were, Hannibal Lecter,” says Will.

“But they did not tell you who you were, did they, my dear Revan?”

Somehow even expecting it, he is not prepared for the rush of horror and awe that fills him at being addressed so. “I know who I am,” Will tells him. “I’m not Darth Revan, Lecter. My name is Will Graham.”

“It is both,” Hannibal insists.

“I’m nobody. I’m just some recruit from a backwater little farming planet called Deralia,” Will says, aware that his own voice is starting to sound hysterical, _desperate._

“Describe your home to me then, Will. Tell me how many suns set over the horizon, what crops your family grew, the color of your mother’s hair.”

Will opens his mouth but no words come out, because _he doesn’t know._ Every answer he can give about his past he realizes suddenly is rote, vague, undetailed, like words memorized on a page or whispered over and over into his ear in his sleep. His mind scrambles to come up with some solid imagery, something _real,_ but finds nothing. Everything from before the past few months since he was a raw recruit on Crawford’s Republic cruiser is just white noise in a dark void, all of it _blank, blank, blank._

“Will,” Alana says to him, voice pleading again.

“Tell me it’s not true, Alana,” he says. “Tell me he’s lying, tell me I’m just confused, tell me _anything!”_

“I...I’m sorry, Will,” she says. “We had no other choice. I didn’t want you to find out this way.” From across the room, Jack takes it all in with stunned silence, while Prurnell merely looks bored.

“You have been cruelly tricked, my darling,” Kanibalas says, and reaches his empty hand out for Will to take, palm upward. “Now come, your rightful place should be here, by my side.” Will wavers where he stands, indecisive and hopelessly lost.

Alana chooses that moment to lunge forward, moving to lop Hannibal’s outstretched arm off but missing her mark as the Dark Jedi quickly dodges her blow. The harsh buzz of lightsaber meeting lightsaber reverberates as the two of them clash, now officially locked in a duel. “Will, Jack, _run!”_ she shouts.

Prurnell punches Jack square in the jaw while he’s distracted and attempts to wrestle the blaster from him. The rifle falls to the floor instead and slides across it, stopping too close to the duelists’ feet as they dance around each other for either of them to safely retrieve it. Jack hits her back hard enough to knock her to the ground as well and runs for the entrance. “Graham, come on!”

Will remains frozen where he is, looking on uncertainly as Alana and Lecter continue to battle.

Alana falls backwards to the floor after a particularly harsh blow, her lightsaber falling from her hand and rolling across the room. Lecter kicks the blaster away as well towards Prurnell before the Jedi can attempt to grab for it instead, and raises his lightsaber to deliver the final blow.

It meets Will’s saber with a harsh crackle and blinding light instead as the younger man leaps into the fray and Force pushes Alana backwards through the entrance. _“Go!”_ he yells without looking back as Jack helps her to her feet.

_“Will!”_ she calls out, but Jack keeps a firm grip on her arm and all but drags her away down the corridor. Prurnell picks up the blaster rifle and follows with clear intent to stop them from getting away.

“I do not wish to fight you, Will,” says Hannibal once they are alone.

“We don’t always get what we want, Lecter.” Will leaps back to avoid a sharp cut from Lecter’s plasma blade, but doesn’t quite make it far enough back, crying out in agony as it just barely nicks the surface of his skin across his abdomen.

“Sometimes that is exactly what we get,” Hannibal parries, shaving off the end of Will’s lightsaber where blade meets hilt with a downward stroke, rendering it useless. His offhand curls inward slightly and Will feels his airway being cut off at his throat.

“You are out of practice, my dear. But no matter, we will work on that together.” Darth Kanibalas smiles down at him benevolently as Will’s vision begins to darken. “We have time for it now.”

*

Will wakes up in a bed to the feeling of a gentle hand rubbing soothing kolto over his lower torso. His eyes spring open as he sits up, inhaling deeply through his nostrils.

_“Shh,”_ Hannibal Lecter soothes, pressing him back onto the bed with enough pressure on his torso that’s just this side of painful.

“What...what are you doing?” Will asks in a hoarse whisper, looking around the room he’s in. As far as he can tell based on its structure and dimensions, they’re still on the _Ripper._ He licks his lips. “Where are my companions?”

“Alana Bloom and Jack Crawford have escaped,” Kanibalas states calmly, as though it does not concern him in the least. “They left you here to my tender mercies.”

Will snorts once, wearily. “Do the Sith have any mercy?”

The other man finishes his ministrations to Will’s wound. “You tell me,” he says simply.

“You’re not a very normal Sith, are you?”

“None of us is normal, Revan. You and I in particular rarely fit into what others may label us. Perhaps there is no proper name for what we are.”

Will swallows. “Please don’t call me that.”

“Will, then,” the other corrects easily. “You may call me whichever of my names you wish. None of them will offend me.” Instead of withdrawing his hand from Will’s skin, he traces a finger lightly and reverently over the burned scar shaped like a crooked smile. Will tenses but does not push the hand away, unwilling to risk breaking the strange peace between them for now.

“I must admit, I enjoy knowing I’ve left my mark on you, just as you have left yours on me.” At Will’s inquisitive look, Hannibal rolls his sleeves back and shows him two straight even lines running symmetrically down his wrists. Will whistles.

“I...Revan did this to you?” he asks, catching himself. “How come?”

“Impudence,” Hannibal answers proudly. “I could not use either of my hands properly for weeks afterward.”

“Swell guy,” Will drawls.

“Remarkable boy,” Lecter counters, and brushes a stray curl from Will’s face, the younger man going very, very still at the motion.

_‘What were we to each other?’_ he doesn’t ask. He won’t ask. He doesn’t feel ready to hear the answer just yet. He strays dangerously near it, however, as he asks instead, “If I was so remarkable to you, why would you fire on my ship?”

“Impudence,” Hannibal answers again, eyes sparkling with amusement. “I never wanted you dead or captured, merely taken down a few pegs. Truth be known, you were very firm in your ideals about how a master and apprentice should behave in regards to one another, and I found it tiresome. I always saw us as something closer to equals, if not precisely that in matters of power and skill.” His smile takes on a hint of mischief as he says, “You needn’t worry that I’ll insist on your calling me ‘Master’ now, not unless you wish to.”

It takes a second for those words to register properly. “Wait, you think I’m _your_ apprentice now?”

“Technically speaking, you are.”

“Maybe you’ve forgotten now since we haven’t tried killing each other yet, but we’re not even on the same side of the war,” Will tells him with a flash of anger.

“As you most certainly have forgotten, we are, in fact, on the same side. It is the Jedi Council’s reprogramming of your mind that has led you to believe otherwise.”

“I’m not talking about that,” Will says, though it does take the wind out of his sails a bit. “Why would I ever join you now after what you did to Taris?”

“Why would you ever join the Republic or the Jedi after their utter failure and disinterest in saving it?” the other man counters. That pulls Will up short, Alana’s pragmatic assertion that it wasn’t her job to save those people echoing back through his mind once again.

“Aside from that, you met those people during your time on the surface, Will. They were backwards, highly discriminatory, practically barbaric in their treatment of others not from their own world. Simply put, they were rude.”

“And for that, they all deserved to die, huh?”

“I despise rudeness, Will,” Hannibal tells him. He rises then and picks something up from the foot of the bed, shaking it out and holding it open for Will to see. A set of Dark Jedi robes, pitch black like his own.

Will chuckles dryly at it. “You don’t give up easy, do you? What happened to my own clothes?”

“They were ruined during our fighting. I already had them disintegrated. My apologies.”

Warily, Will stands, fortunately not trouserless as well as shirtless, and lets Lecter help him put it on. Hannibal smooths it out over his shoulders and leaves his hands resting there, leaning in to inhale deeply at the base of his neck. Will closes his eyes and says nothing to the man openly sniffing him.

“We shall continue these philosophical discussions some more, my darling, and I am confident in time you will once again come to the same conclusions that I have.”

Will has the fearful premonition that he’s right. “Maybe I just don’t find you that interesting,” he tries.

He tries not to flinch as the man grows bold enough to nuzzle close to his ear, near enough that he can feel the man’s lips pull into a pleased smile against it. _“You will.”_

*

He is right. It’s as easy as slipping into a warm bath. As much as Will doesn’t want it to happen, he finds Hannibal Lecter’s words intriguing and everything he learns, or relearns perhaps, about the man himself fascinating.

It might be easier to resist, he muses, if only he’d felt a deeper connection to the Jedi Order from the beginning. He hadn’t, however, having no time to form such attachments nor any real desire to, and wonders what the hell they could have been thinking or how they could see themselves as any better, throwing him back out into the cold like this just to let him stumble and fall right back into the arms of their worst enemy as soon as he’s out on his own.

Alana had said she believed he wanted to be a good man, but what does good have to do with being Light or Dark? Will has felt no particular affinity for either since he discovered his Force powers, and thinks if he had to label himself as anything he might call himself a “Grey” Jedi instead. Could he do something like that? It all seems so muddled and meaningless to him otherwise.

“I feel as though I have finally given up good and evil, for behaviorism,” Will admits to him finally, at dinner in the man’s private quarters. “And in no small part, thanks to your enthusiastic encouragement,” he adds when Hannibal smiles at him over his wine.

“I had hoped you would say as much. And I hope you will forgive me now, for feeling the need to test it.” Choosing not to wait for them to finish this course or give Will the chance to mentally prepare, he removes the cover from the center dish and sets it aside for the younger Jedi to see.

Will backs away from the table immediately, knocking his chair into the wall in the process. He clasps his hand over his mouth though there is no danger of any sound coming out; he doesn’t even think he can breathe for the moment. He cannot look away from it if he tries, staring blankly into the dead eyes of the Ithorian whose crescent-shaped head has been carved open and made into a morbid but curiously elegant bowl for the as-yet unidentified meat dish inside, gorgeous violet-colored flowers scattered artfully underneath.

“Have...have I been...” he whispers, indicating the half-finished bowl of soup at his place setting.

“Already partaking? Yes,” Hannibal answers simply.

Will puts his hand over his mouth again and leans back against the wall. He wants to be disgusted, but all he feels is surprised and yet somehow numb. Maybe it’s only the shock, or maybe it says something else about him entirely. “I...I knew about this...before? And I was okay with it? Did I _partake?”_

“Only when you dined with me,” Hannibal answers. “You had no particularly strong opinions, though you thought it a fairly amusing quirk of mine. Tell me, Will, is this so much worse than everything else you already know me to be capable of?” the Sith Lord asks, following his words with another bite of his own meal. “In almost every culture and every species, across countless solar systems, people have eaten their fallen enemies. You might call it one of our oldest, most common traditions throughout the known galaxy, and very likely beyond it.”

“Excuse me,” Will says abruptly, and exits the dining area.

Hannibal follows him out into the open living space of the rest of his quarters. “It is rude to leave a meal unfinished, Will.”

“It’s ruder to feed a dinner guest people without telling him first, _Kanibalas,”_ Will sneers. “Any more tricks like that up your sleeve?”

“Possibly,” the other man says rather than giving him a straight answer. Will snarls at him for it, unthinkingly throwing a bolt of bright, crackling energy at the man in his frustration. The other man deflects it easily, expecting it, and responds in kind by Force pushing Will backwards, lifting him high and slamming him against the wall.

He steps in closer and allows Will to slide further down the wall until they are eye level, leaving Will’s feet still dangling a couple of inches above the ground. Will’s wrists are firmly affixed to the wall, unable to reach out and claw at him. Hannibal lifts up his hand and curls his fingers again, Force choking Will as he had done before to end their brief duel.

_“Try...ing...to k...ill me...now?”_ Will asks with what little breath he has left.

“Never,” Hannibal responds, abruptly releasing his chokehold. Will gasps for breath, lips slack and open, and Hannibal seizes the opportunity to claim them with his own, plundering the warm depths of Will’s mouth with his tongue while the younger man is still dizzy.

Will is stunned, passive in his shock for a few surprised seconds, but he quickly finds himself closing his eyes and kissing back with just as much ferocity. He groans helplessly when the hand that had been Force choking him mere moments ago comes to rest lightly against his throat, though without exerting any pressure, arousing him beyond belief. He tries to roll his hips forward but finds them firmly stuck to the wall like his hands, growling in frustration because it isn’t what he wants, they aren’t _close enough._

His concentrated focus on _just being able to touch the man_ is enough to finally break him free from the Force hold, and he falls forward, Hannibal catching him around the waist as he slides down so they don’t both topple to the ground and lowering his feet to the floor, while Will runs his hands over arms, shoulders, chest, everywhere he can easily reach. They haven’t stopped kissing the entire time, and don’t stop now, neither of them letting up on their firm groping strokes or tasting each other’s mouths and skin as Hannibal guides them carefully to the large bed centered against the back wall of the room.

Their robes both get worked off their shoulders and left to pool at their feet, and _this now,_ this is where Will remembers that the whole experience is uncharted territory for him. He’s certain this isn’t their first time, not with the things Hannibal has said and hinted about their relationship before, but it is the first since he lost his memories. It’s his first sexual encounter with _anyone_ since he lost his memories, in fact; there hadn’t exactly been a lot of time or interest for Will in that sort of thing before now.

It’s easy enough to put his trust in Hannibal for this, let the other man take the lead and press him down into the soft bed, lay back and allow himself to enjoy it as the man draws soft sighs and moans from him with lips and tongue and teeth latched onto his most sensitive places—around his neck, his collarbone, his nipples, his belly, and lower, lower still, the sensations all feeling unfamiliar but oh-so _right._

It feels too good for him to be embarrassed by the noises he makes as he is opened up by that mouth and fingers, his toes curling and one hand coming up to tug at his own hair as the other man laps and suckles at his entrance. It’s all he can do not to scratch deep welts into the man’s back as he yanks him back upward so he can kiss away that smug grin.

All he can do is cling and scratch and bite and moan as the other man presses inside and rocks into him, so he does all of that, determined to leave as many angry red marks and bruises on Hannibal’s skin as the other seems determined to leave on his.

And later, as they lay sweaty and sated in a tangle of limbs, Will will try to slip out of bed to put his robe on and tiptoe quietly back to his own quarters, only to find himself pulled back by a pair of strong arms into a possessive embrace. He’ll let his head rest comfortably at the crook of Hannibal’s neck and curl his fingers into the man’s chest hair, and think to himself that _well,_ if this was inevitable anyway, at least there were worse ways he could have fallen.

*

While it had long been assumed that only those strong in the Force could enter the Temple of the Ancients on Lehon, Alana found that as long as Jack stuck close by her side her command of the Force was enough to shield him from any ill effects, except for the mild headache that the man complained of but insisted he’d be able to work through as long as they hurried. The rest of the small crew of Republic soldiers they’d managed to recruit would have to stay behind, so it would be just the two of them and the eager little T3 droid that had already gone in ahead of them, the ban on non-Force users obviously having no effect on non-organics.

Inside, Will Graham sits and meditates, waiting, his concentration broken only when he hears the familiar whirr of Winston rolling towards him and the little droid’s excited beeps. He smiles and opens his eyes when the astromech stops directly in front of him, reaching up to pat it fondly on the head. “Hey there, boy. Did you miss me?” His grin widens when it trills in the affirmative.

“Well, I’ll be damned. You’re still alive after all,” Jack says as he and Alana approach, the latter with a more guarded and worried expression than the former.

“Hello Jack, Alana,” Will says without standing, only tipping his head back slightly and lowering the hood of his robe to see them. Alana is grateful for that much, at least. The black hood being in place had made him look far too much like the old Revan for her liking, even without the battle-scarred Mandalorian mask the other used to hide behind obscuring his face.

“Hello Will,” she greets warily. “We came to disable the disruptor field keeping us from taking off again. What are you doing here?”

“The same. You needn’t worry about that now,” he answers, tilting his head to the side and giving them a disarming smile. “I took care of it.”

“Well, good, that means we can get out of here then. This place is giving me a damn migraine.”

The smile slides from Will’s face as he looks at Jack and says, “That’s because you’re not supposed to be here. You desecrate these grounds by standing on them.”

_“Will...”_ Alana says his name carefully, tone at once pleading and warning as the feeling of wrongness rises in her gut more and more as they talk to him.

“And you desecrate it all the more by bringing him in the first place,” Will tells her. “I thought better of you than that, Alana.”

“Now, hold on,” Jack says, clearly not understanding the danger well enough to tread lightly like Alana is trying. “You’re acting like I pissed in your ale, but I didn’t see you getting all bent out of shape about that T3 unit showing up!”

“It’s a droid,” Will spells out slowly as though he thinks Jack is being insultingly stupid. “It can go wherever it wants. Besides that, I missed my droid,” Will tells him. “I didn’t miss you.”

With a sharp twist of his fingers, Will snaps Jack’s neck with the Force before he can ever respond. Alana unhooks her new lightsaber from her belt, but before she can ignite it the droid between them shocks her hand, protective of its true master, startling her and causing the weapon to fall numbly from her fingers.

Will swiftly stands, presses the hilt of his own lightsaber to her stomach, and ignites it, making her gasp in shock as it slices through her. He turns it off again and lets her fall crumpling to the ground.

With her dying breath, their eyes meet, spilt tears sticking to her eyelashes, and they tumble headfirst into one final shared vision—the last glimpse of his old memories Will knows he will ever see, Alana’s death severing his last connection to them.

*

_“Don’t get up,” Revan commands as Kanibalas sits up from where he had fallen to the floor, kneeling with both of his arms resting uselessly in his lap, palms upward showing the deep, fresh gashes on his wrists from Revan’s lightsaber._

_“The next time you feel foolish enough to dare think you’re allowed to_ touch _me, I want you to look at those scars first and reconsider.”_

_Kanibalas lifts his gaze up to meet his master’s, revealing a smirk that is somehow at once both defiant and adulatory as he says, “Had I known a simple friendly hand on your shoulder would affect you so, I would have done it much sooner.”_

_Revan ceases his pacing and stops before his apprentice, choosing then to sit cross-legged so they are once again facing each on eye level, a severe frown on his currently unmasked features. “Is your shamelessness meant to impress me?” he asks. “Because I feel I should remind you that you are very fortunate I chose not to cut them off. Or any other parts of your anatomy,” he says pointedly. “It was amusing for a little while, but I am really beginning to find your distraction with me tedious, Kanibalas.”_

_“Perhaps it could be amusing to you again, if you would only allow yourself to reciprocate.”_

_“Are you laboring under the delusion that the attraction is mutual? Oh, this is more pathetic than I had thought.” The older man frowns then, eyes lowered as Revan leans closer. “You see, this is exactly what I’ve been talking about. Sentiment, loyalty,_ love, _those things have no place in our way of life. Look at how weak they’ve made you.”_

_“That is where our opinions differ. The one belief the Jedi and the Sith share, and they are both incorrect for it. I believe it is weakness to deny those feelings, and strength to embrace them.”_

_“Do you think you can change me, Kanibalas, the way I’ve changed you?” the Sith Lord sneers. “Let me make one thing perfectly clear then, and listen carefully because this is the only time I’ll be kind enough to spell it out for you like this.” He leans close then, puts his lips to his apprentice’s ear and whispers,_ “What you want, is not going to happen. You are _never_ going to have me.” _He stands then, picking up his mask to put it back on and leave._

_“You’re wrong,” Kanibalas says._

_Revan turns back around slowly and narrows his eyes, mask still in hand. “Excuse me?”_

_“You underestimate me. You underestimate my patience, my determination, my cunning. I will have you someday, Revan, one way or another. That’s a promise.” The older man smiles faintly. “And I always keep my promises.”_

_The younger man stares in stunned silence for a second before bursting suddenly into startled laughter. “You don’t give up easy, do you? Well then,” he says, straightening, lifting the mask sideways to his forehead in mock salute. “Best of luck to you there,” he says with a smirk, slipping his mask on finally and lifting his hood up over it._

_“Thank you, my lord,” Kanibalas says quietly as he watches him go._

*

Will blinks down once at Alana Bloom’s corpse under the Lehonian sun, scratching idly at Winston’s shell casing when the droid trills up at him concernedly.

Hannibal steps out from the shadows of the temple where he had been hiding in wait, wrapping his arms possessively around the younger man from behind and lavishing praise in the form of nuzzling behind his ear and soft kisses and nips along the column of his neck. “You were magnificent,” he whispers against Will’s skin.

Will grasps onto the arms around him and leans back into the embrace. He tilts his head back to meet Hannibal’s gaze with his own. “Did you think you could change me?” he asks, echoing the memory he just saw.

Hannibal’s eyes darken with a mischievous glint as he recognizes the words and realizes he has been caught, the truth of how he manipulated the game and maneuvered them to this moment now revealed. “I already have,” he answers.

Will smiles and shakes his head with a soft snort. “Well played,” he says and leans up for a kiss.

The old Revan was an idiot, he decides as Hannibal’s lips seal over his own. Here in the arms of his lover, sharing breath as they stand together on sacred hallowed grounds of the ancestors of all Jedi and Sith, he doesn’t feel weak at all. He feels powerful.

**Author's Note:**

>  ~~"How to Maneuver Your Way Out of the Frenemies Zone and Manipulate Your BFF into Falling in Love with You," a book by Hannibal Lecter~~ Could probably apply to canon as much as fanfic at this point honestly. ;)
> 
> In many ways, this is just as much the Revan/Malak fic I always wanted to write but never got around to as it is a hannigram AU, if not perhaps more so. That reunion where Revan learns the truth about who he is in particular is something that's been rattling around in my brain for years and closer to how I wish it could have gone in the game. I hope you've enjoyed me unleashing my inner Star Wars fanboy on you all as much as I've enjoyed letting him out to play! ;)


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